I have received a pm asking how I got ASIO to work in MMW on my HTPC with USB DAC (Chord QuteEX) for bit-perfect audio. I have been asked about this before in individual threads or on aspects of my experience in attempting to get consistent bit-perfect audio. So, I thought it might be useful to aggregate in a single post what this (forever) newbie has learned along the way. It pretty much just outlines what has worked for me in my situation: HTPC->USB->Unsupported Chord DAC. Hopefully Pavle, Jiri, nohitter, rusty or other experts will jump in if I stuff anything up drastically.

Good luck with your own efforts.

Firstly, if possible, I would avoid ASIO and go with WASAPI in “Exclusive Mode”, which provides for bit-perfect audio to the DAC. Wasapi is easier as it is installed with MMW and you don’t need to hunt out files and drivers on the internet with all the pain and risk that entails.

If you want to try that just go to Tools/Options/Output Plugins/ and select the radio button for MediaMonkey Wasapi output.

Then select 'Configure'. If your PC defaults to your DAC as audio device, then select 'Default Device'. If not, select it from the drop down menu.

Check the box: 'Exclusive Mode' and select "Format: Same as Source" from the drop down menu.

Press the "Advanced" button and check the box marked "Event Driven Exclusive Mode". If you subsequently have problems with audio you might want to check the following box also or uncheck both. These settings seem to work differently for each DAC I have tried.

Now, legacy Chord DACs don’t work with MMW Wasapi, ever since the Creator update to Windows 10 as Chord have failed to update the drivers for all but the most recent models. Poor form given the cost of the DACs in my view, but, that said, there are other options including ASIO and Kernal Streaming for bit-perfect audio.

ASIO:

I needed an application and a .dll to get ASIO working in my setup. The .dll is out_asio.dll and the version I use is the old one from the Otachan website:

This .dll is v.0.67 from 2006 designed for Winamp but which is compatible with MMW. And it works in my system. There are more modern versions around which appear to work better for some. Just do a search on out_asio.dll, if this one does not work for you.

You will also need an ASIO driver unless one comes with your DAC. Usually it is only pro-recording DACS that might have this driver. Most domestic DACs do not. Mine doesn’t. I use ASIO4ALL which can be found here:

Once you have downloaded the .dll and the driver, place the .dll in the MMW plugin folder: C:\Program Files (x86)\MediaMonkey\Plugins

Then install ASIO4ALL. I just let it install in its default directory.

Open MMW and go to: Tools\Options\Output Plugins

Select the radio button beside: ASIO output (dll version) v0.67 (as it is called with the above .dll installed)

Select “Configure”, and select ASIO4ALL from the drop down Device menu.

The default settings work for me:

Press OK, and OK out of Options.

Play a song in MMW and the ASIO4ALL icon should appear in your system tray. Click it to open. I find that the default settings work fine here for me. Just make sure that the DAC is selected in this window – the blue/green button beside the DAC name should be active.

That’s it. Fingers crossed, it should work. If not, it might be worthwhile tracking down a more recent .dll.

Things to avoid. In my experience using a USB hub in the path to the DAC and attaching a drive loaded with music can be tricky, particularly with large HD audio files. Similarly using adjacent USB ports which may be sharing resources. Although I have had no problems with files below 48kHz sample rate.

Hope this helps.

KERNAL STREAMING:

Kernal streaming also provides for bit-perfect audio and is simple to get up and running.
Here is the .dll I use: